SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
A total of eighty Canarian companies participated this Friday in the fourth training day within the cycle ‘Agenda 2030 and Companies’, organized by the Directorate General for Research and Coordination of Sustainable Development of the Government of the Canary Islands.
On this occasion, the objective was to help business organizations understand the risks and opportunities that will be generated in the fight against climate change.
During the opening of the conference, José Antonio Valbuena, Minister of Ecological Transition of the regional government, assured that the Canary Islands have committed to reaching neutrality in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, and the whole group has to get involved in this goal. of society, where “the action of the business economic sector is very important.”
“Economic activity is feasible as long as there is someone in the market who needs the goods or services, but the citizen is increasingly demanding and wants that product they are going to consume, be it a good or a service, to be a sustainable product, ecologically neutral, “he said.
The conference was held by videoconference and was moderated by Alberto Santana, from the Plan B Group consultancy.
The main exhibition was given by Javier Molero, director of Projects and Agenda 2030 at the United Nations Global Compact Spain.
Molero began with a reminder of the danger of irreversible environmental catastrophe.
In this sense, he reviewed the main greenhouse gas emission factors, from the burning of fossil fuels to the intensive practices of agriculture and livestock, through the destruction of marine ecosystems.
“But the fight against climate change is profitable,” he also affirmed, referring to the 271,000 jobs that Spain has estimated to create annually in jobs derived from the energy transition.
Among other issues, Molero spoke of the COP26 climate summit, which is being held in Glasgow; of the emission reduction objectives of Europe and Spain, and of the Science Based Targets protocol, which companies are beginning to adopt to certify that their emission reduction objectives have scientific support.
ACTIONS BY SMEs TO FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
Molero summarized the set of measures that are already available to small and medium-sized companies to join the fight against climate change, from awareness actions inside and outside the organization (with videos, workshops, awards, alliances) to a definition of priorities that identifies its negative impacts on the climate, as well as its opportunities to generate positive actions or the design of a strategy with climate objectives that are measurable and, with the same importance, that are communicable. “Today what is not communicated does not exist,” he said.
“In Spanish companies there is room for improvement,” said Molero in reference to a survey carried out in 2020 by the United Nations Global Compact Spain, where only 16% of the companies consulted said they had policies to combat climate change and less than one a third had incorporated processes to measure emissions.
GOOD PRACTICE CASES
But companies were also the protagonists of the day, sharing four cases of good practices.
Irene Talg, from the Tenerife Hotel Tigaiga, told how environmental sensitivity has accompanied the company since it was founded by her grandfather. The only difference, he explained, is that they have gone from sensitivity to “environmental concern.”
According to Talg, the hotel has been measuring its carbon footprint for more than ten years, which is offset by 5,200 square meters of garden. 100% of the energy they consume is certified from renewable sources, he said. “No company is small, the small thing is to do nothing”, was the motto of his exhibition.
Luis Mesa, from the Majorera family farm Verdeaurora Bio Farm, also shared his experience with the rest of the participants. “Fuerteventura is an example of the danger we face with climate change,” he said, referring to the way in which the island’s desertification accelerated after the arrival of the Europeans.
The family farm, in which he also represents the third generation of entrepreneurs, was reconverted in 2006 to go from tomato to the production of olives and aloe vera, with photovoltaic panels to generate electricity for the pressing machines with which they make olive oil.
They have also opened rural tourism houses that value the architectural and ethnographic heritage of the area, with environmental actions to help migratory birds that pass through the island’s sky and with ecotourism experiences for small groups of visitors.
“We have also carried out reforestation processes of the native flora, because it is something that basically does not cost so much and helps to raise awareness,” he said.
“This I think is the most important thing, that companies support awareness-raising and education actions,” he explained.
AGROTURISM
Along these lines of awareness and training, Pepe Santana, also from Majorero, shared his experience of receiving students from the University of La Laguna to do agro-tourism internships at La Gayría, the tourism company he runs in Fuerteventura, where a photovoltaic energy installation operates. that allows them to supply themselves with energy.
In addition, and as Luis Mesa did before, Santana wanted to highlight the great work that is being developed by the Sustainable Fuerteventura Rural Network with the support of the Fuerteventura Biosphere Reserve.
The general director of the group Aguas Minerales de Firgas, José Luis León, spoke about the trajectory that the well-known Canarian company has in the circular economy, with glass containers that have not stopped being “100% returnable” and with improvements in weight of bottles and boxes that result in less energy use for transport.
Similarly, he stressed that currently “100% of the electrical energy used in the factory is certified green energy.”
As an example of the actions that can be initiated beyond the main business of the company, he spoke of the start-up by the group of a glass recycler in the Canary Islands, “to collect all the glass that is recoverable in the islands”, and the reforestation efforts that have been carried out together with the Fundación Foresta.
“It has planted more than half a million trees capturing five million tons of CO2 per year,” he said. *
As the general director of Research and Coordination of Sustainable Development, David Padrón, summed up, “the Canary 2030 Agenda is not of the autonomous government, it is of the whole of Canarian society.”
